I actually enjoyed the first hand experience of an early-ish Google described at the beginning. For those with enough tenure in tech, was this ethos unique (at the time)? Or was it typical of successful, tech-heavy startups? I could believe an early Sun might've felt similar but I don't know.

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glimshe 19 hours ago | parent [-]

Most of the top names had unique, great cultures at some point. Early Microsoft was awesome, as well, I hear, early Apple.

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PessimalDecimal 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ah good point. The Intel Museum in Santa Clara shows signs of that too. Custom labels on bottles of wine to celebrate hittings revenue milestones e.g.

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VirusNewbie 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Early Microsoft (well, and current micorsoft) did not/does not shower their employees with massive stock grants.

Google was one of the first tech companies to pay so well that people switched industries to get into tech both to work alongside brilliant people from various backgrounds and to make a lot of money.

Before Google, it was very rare for an independent contributor/software engineer in tech to retire early if you didn't hit the startup lottery. Sure, people who joined Microsoft pre-IPO did well, but it's not the same as now where a good 10-15 year run at a FAANG allows many to retire early (if they choose).

	▲	glimshe an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It did not shower people with grants but I met plenty of people who made a killing with post IPO stocks and pay at Microsoft. It also had a great culture with vibrant campus life, lectures, free soda and other things that were uncommon at the time.